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Specs

A spec is a declaration that will usually test your system with a requirement. They are defined by calling the TestBox it() global function, which takes in a title and a body function/closure. The title is the title of this spec you will write and the body function/closure is a block of code that represents the spec.

A spec will contain most likely one or more expectations that will test the state of the SUT (software under test) or sometimes referred to as code under test. In BDD style, your specifications are what is used to validate your requirements of a scenario which is your describe() block of your story.

function run(){

     describe("A suite", function(){
          it("contains spec with an awesome expectation", function(){
               expect( true ).toBeTrue();
          });

          it("contains a spec with more than 1 expectation", function(){
               expect( [1,2,3] ).toBeArray();
               expect( [1,2,3] ).toHaveLength( 3 );
          });
     });

}

An expectation is a nice assertion DSL that TestBox exposes so you can pretty much read what should happen in the testing scenario. A spec will pass if all expectations pass. A spec with one or more expectations that fail will fail the entire spec.

The it() function is also aliased as then()

Arguments

They are closures Ma!

Since the implementations of the describe() and it() functions are closures, they can contain executable code that is necessary to implement the test. All CFML rules of scoping apply to closures, so please remember them. We recommend always using the variables scope for easy access and distinction.

function run(){

     describe("A suite is a closure", function(){
          c = new Calculator();

          it("and so is a spec", function(){
               expect( c ).toBeTypeOf( 'component' );
          });
     });

}

Spec Data Binding

The data argument can be used to pass in a structure of data into the spec so it can be used later within the body closure. This is great when doing looping and creating dynamic closure calls:

// Simple Example
it( title="can handle binding", body=function( data ){
    expect(    data.keep ).toBeTrue();
}, data={ keep = true } );

// Complex Example. Let's iterate over a bunch of files and create dynamic specs
for( var filePath in files ){

  it( 
    title="#getFileFromPath( filePath )# should be valid JSON", 
    // pass in a struct of data to the spec for later evaluation
    data={ filePath = filePath },
    // the spec closure accepts the data for later evaluation
    body=function( data ) {
      var json = fileRead( data.filePath );
      var isItJson = isJSON( json );

      expect( json ).notToBeEmpty();
      expect( isItJson ).toBeTrue();

      if( isItJson ){
          var jsonData = deserializeJSON(json);
          if( getFileFromPath( filePath ) != "index.json"){
              expect( jsonData ).toHaveKey( "name" );
              expect( jsonData ).toHaveKey( "type" );
          }
      }

  });
}